For many years harvesters, such as agricultural balers, have been used to consolidate and package crop material to facilitate the storage and handling of the crop material for later use. Usually, a mower-conditioner cuts and conditions the crop material for windrow drying in the sun. When the cut crop material is properly dried, a harvester, such as a round baler, the most frequently used in the industry, travels along the windrows to pick up the crop material and form it into cylindrically-shaped round bales.
More specifically, the cut crop material is gathered at the front of the baler from along the ground, onto a pickup assembly, and introduced into a bale-forming chamber within the baler. Inside, the cut crop is rolled up into a predetermined size. A conventional bale chamber may include a pair of opposing sidewalls with a series of belts, chains, and/or rolls that rotate and compress the crop material into the cylindrically-shaped round bale. When the predetermined size is achieved, the cylindrically-shaped round bale is wrapped and bound by wrapping material, such as net wrapping, plastic wrapping, and/or wire. After the round bale is wrapped, the back of the baler, or tailgate, opens and the wrapped bale is discharged.
Wrapping material is fed into the baler off a wrapping material roll and into a wrapping mechanism, conventionally located in the front of the baler. One of the processes managed by the wrapping mechanism is making sure the wrapping material is spread out before being placed on the bale. This ensures that the wrapping material is not bunched or crumpled, but is instead both taught and wide enough to cover the entire width of the bale. Typically, a spread roll is used for this task. Conventional spread rolls comprises a journaled roller placed between two sidewalls of a harvester. Wrapped around the spread roll is one or more coils that travel in a screw-like fashion towards at least one of the sidewalls. As the spread roll rotates, wrapping material in contact with a coil is stretched towards the sidewall, keeping the wrapping material taught as it proceeds towards wrapping the bale.
A common problem with such a system is that wrapping material can be stretched too far and come in contact with the journaled bearing on either end of the spread roll. Wrapping material can be caught by the rotation of the bearings and become damaged, leaving pieces of debris material in or around the bearings. Over time, such debris can build up, causing increased maintenance issues with the spread roll in general and the bearings in particular. There is a need for a prevention mechanism, such as a cap, that can prevent wrapping material from contacting the bearings in a spread roll.